Hemming Plaza group taps One Spark leader to lead park revitalization

Photos by Will.Dickey@Jacksonville.com Above: Hemming Plaza's first executive director, Vince Cavin, was named at an event at the park Thursday. Left: Cavin will head the effort to revitalize the downtown landmark.

Will.Dickey@Jacksonville.com--09/04/14--Vince Cavin was announced as the executive director of Friends of Hemming Park during a press conference Thursday, September 4, 2014 at Hemming Park in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. (The Florida Times-Union, Will Dickey)

Will.Dickey@Jacksonville.com Willie Paige, a regular at Hemming Plaza, listens to the announcement of plans for the park's future. The hope is to make the downtown park a destination and family friendly environment.

Will.Dickey@Jacksonville.com--09/04/14--Mayor Alvin Brown (seated) signs an ordinance handing over the management of Hemming Plaza to the Friends of Hemming Park during a press conference Thursday, September 4, 2014 at Hemming Park in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. (The Florida Times-Union, Will Dickey)

Will.Dickey@Jacksonville.com--09/04/14--Bill Prescott (left), with Downtown Vision, shares a laugh with Wayne Wood, board president of Friends of Hemming Park as they announce plans for the park Thursday, September 4, 2014 at Hemming Park in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. (The Florida Times-Union, Will Dickey)

Will.Dickey@Jacksonville.com--09/04/14--The new Hemming Park logo was unveiled by the Friends of Hemming Park during a press conference Thursday, September 4, 2014 at Hemming Park in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. (The Florida Times-Union, Will Dickey)

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Hemming Plaza will soon fill with yoga classes, coffee and concerts, as the city park officially came under new management Thursday morning.

Vince Cavin — a local events organizer who was one of the first One Spark staff members — will lead Hemming Plaza’s management as the park’s first executive director.

On Thursday, Mayor Alvin Brown signed a city ordinance handing the plaza’s management over to the Friends of Hemming Park.

The mayor, City Council members and community activists gathered in the shade of oak trees at the park next to City Hall as Friends of Hemming Park President Wayne Wood introduced Cavin to the crowd.

The park is the important domino, he explained. Once it’s in motion, the other downtown projects — the Laura Street Trio, the Barnett Bank building, The Jacksonville Landing — will follow.

Wood wants people to start calling it Hemming Park. He hopes the City Council will pass an ordinance officially changing the name, but in the meantime, he, his staff and the newly released logo will refer to it as Hemming Park.

Wood said the project was going to be “daunting,” but critical for the city.

Why will this project succeed where the city government hasn’t?

Wood said the nonprofit has to focus only on one park. The city’s parks department is the largest urban park system in the United States, according to the city’s website.

Also, there’s a dedicated full-time staff focused on just this one park.

“This is our most important park,” Wood said. “It’s the threshold that dignitaries and visitors walk through. It’s a derelict square in the middle of the city, and it should be vibrant and exciting.”

For years, Hemming Plaza has held an unattractive reputation for being dirty, littered and filled with homeless people.

By next month, daily events — like morning yoga or tai chi or lunchtime concerts — will begin.

Cavin directed One Spark’s operations, finances and events. He also has been the president of the popular Party, Benefit and Jam group, which hosts events to benefit other nonprofits.

“It’s exciting to be part of the renewal and growth happening right now in the urban core,” Cavin said. “We see the plain need to restore our cultural landscape.”

The park will be cleaned up, pressure-washed and renovated, he said.

The city gave the Friends of Hemming Park group $1 million for the first 18 months of a five-year management contract. The city’s Downtown Investment Authority will give the nonprofit $800,000, and the city’s parks department will award the other $200,000.

The nonprofit must raise $250,000 in the first 12 months.

The new logo for the park uses a green square and street intersections to create the letters “HP.”

The management staff will include a full-time social worker, an operations director, an administrative person, a volunteer coordinator and four full-time “ambassadors” working in the park. At least one ambassador will clean and patrol the lot.

The park still will host part of Art Walk on the first Wednesday of the month, and it still will allow food trucks to park there.

A new sculpture will be installed next week, Wood said.

Events will be easier to host than going through city bureaucracy, Wood said. Vendors will sell beer and wine in a cordoned-off part of the park. Sales and those events will help pay for the park.

John Fraser, 23, a homeless man who gathered with his friends in the shade near the event, said the new management could be good for the park, but he and the other homeless people who frequent the park are nervous.

He said no one has talked to them about what might change for the homeless who congregate in the park. He said he hopes the new management can keep drug dealing out of the park, and he hopes the park will improve for people like him who want to meet friends.

“I think it will work,” he said. “But some of the homeless people who are older, they’re not too sure it’ll work.”

“All those people standing over there, they’re going to try to fix the park up and then kick the homeless out,” said DeWayne McNair, 21, another man standing nearby the event.